Welcome to the Hog Blog, a blog chronicling minor-league baseball in the Lehigh Valley. Tom Housenick, The Morning Call's IronPigs beat writer, has been at The Morning Call since 2008. In a previous lifetime, he was at Lackawanna County Stadium in Moosic talking with future Phillies Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell, Shane Victorino and Ryan Howard, among many others.
He’ll now be spending his summers in search of who the Phillies are hoping to be the next Chase Utley and Cole Hamels plus any outfielder who catch and hit. What he really hopes to find are the next Mariano Rivera, Todd Helton and Jim Thome --- great human beings who happened to be great at this sport.
He spent the last five years covering Colonial League football, college basketball and high school track & field.

With the IronPigs, fighting for a playoff berth a year ago, needing a starter in the season's final weeks, the Phillies dipped to Clearwater for Mario Hollands, who was left behind in extended spring when camp broke in the spring and had shuffled through Lakewood, Reading and Clearwater during the season.

The results weren't real pretty for the 23-year-old -- in 12.2 innings over three starts he allowed 21 hits and 13 earned runs, losing two decisions.

A year later, with the IronPigs again needing a starter after Tyler Cloyd was called up earlier in the day, the Phillies again dipped down to the Florida State League, summoning Perci Garner to start Monday's game against Scranton.

Dave Brundage is hoping the 24-year-old right-hander, the Phillies' second-round pick in 2010, didn't check the standings when he arrived in Allentown.

"I don't really want him to know that," Brundage said, talking about the importance of the game to the IronPigs' playoff hopes. "I want him to just approach it kind of like [David] Buchanan did -- 'hey, you've got nothing to lose, you're going back ... ' He's going to have enough on his plate. He's going to be excited, nerves are going to play into it, so that's the approach we'll try to take with him."

Buchanan came up from Reading under similar circumstances when Ethan Martin was promoted to the Phillies learlier this month. But Buchanan has stuck around by throwing three solid starts, allowing only four earned runs in 21.2 innings.

Whether Garner, a 24-year-old right hander out of Ball State who was the team's second-round pick in 2010, sticks around for more remains to be seen. Both Jonathan Pettibone and Roy Halladay making rehab starts Tuesday, so both are seemingly on the erge of returning to action. Depending on their return, that would likely bump two of Pettibone, Martin or Cloyd back to the IronPigs at some point over the final two weeks of the season.

"As of now [it's one start], but this is Triple-A -- anything can change," Brundage said.

Like Buchanan, who struggled in his last two outings at Reading before his promotion, Garner wasn't exactly setting the world on fire in the FSL.

Garner is 6-6 with a 4.30 ERA in 22 starts at Clearwater but is 0-5 in his last six starts, allowing 20 earned runs in 29 innings for a 5.21 ERA. He lasted just 1.2 innings in his last start against Daytona, allowing five runs (four earned) and four hits while walking three.

Since starting the year 5-0 with a 2.78 ERA in his first 11 starts, Garner is 1-6 with a 6.08 ERA in his last 11, and command has been an issue -- he's walked 62 in 121.1 innings, including 17 in his last 16.1 innings.

"They say he's got good stuff, it's just a matter of harnassing him a little bit and getting him in the zone and getting him attacking that strike zone," Brundage said. "Joe [Jordan, the Phillies minor league director] said he's been on their radar for wanting to move him up and see how he handles -- not necessarily Clearwater to Triple-A but it's one start and we'll go from there."